Xerox Corp.

Digital Book Printing Conference: Expectations for drupa Announcements
November 5, 2015 at 1:27 pm

What can book manufacturers and publishers expect from digital equipment manufacturers at drupa next year? Hear how a panel featuring Mike Herold of Ricoh, John Conley of Xerox, Francis McMahon of Canon Solutions America, Jeff Tabit of Eastman Kodak, and Marc Johnson of Hewlett-Packard answered that question at the 2015 Digital Book Printing Conference.

Who Can Rival Amazon?
January 22, 2014

Recently my friend Mike Shatzkin asked me to participate in a panel on Amazon at Digital Book World. Mike asked all the panelists a question that I want to attempt to answer at greater length than I was able to at the conference. The question was in two parts:  first, how much more market share can Amazon amass before it slows down or is stopped? Second, who can put together a meaningful merchandising service that could take share from Amazon?

Espresso Print-on-Demand at Books-a-Million Maine Store
November 18, 2013

Sometimes living in Maine has unexpected advantages beyond lobster, seaside air, and friendly people, as I discovered yesterday when learning one of the newest beta sites for the Espresso Print-on-Demand system was being unveiled at a South Portland Books-a-Million store. Publerati is located in nearby Portland.

Books-A-Million Dips Toe in Print-On-Demand Business
July 18, 2013

BIRMINGHAM, Alabama – Books-A-Million Inc., the Birmingham-based chain of 253 bookstores, will dip its toe in the print-on-demand book business and install on-demand hardware in a Maine store and a store to be named later, the company announced today.

On Demand Books LLC’s Espresso Book Machines, which today are located in about 70 college and independent bookstores – but not at major chains – can print self-published books, photo books and major titles from publishers including Harper Collins, Penguin, Macmillan, McGraw Hill, Random House and Simon & Schuster.

The Me-Book
July 1, 2013

Ebooks get a lot of attention, but there is another publishing world that exists in parallel with the commercial publishing world we see and know. It is the shadow world that evolved from the copier and later the digital printer — for the first time, individuals could make their own books.

Industry Experts Advise the Random/Penguin Management Team
June 21, 2013

The merger of Penguin and Random House is expected to close in July, creating—with sales of £2.5bn—the largest trade publishing business ever. Ahead of any announcements about its forthcoming plans, The Bookseller asked a range of industry insiders what the new management team should do:

Dennis Johnson, publisher and co-founder, Melville House

If I were the CEO of Random Penguins, I would...
1. Join those b******* at Apple in standing up to the American government's persecution of the publishing industry, and to its protection of Amazon's monopoly.

The Rise of the Full-Color Book
March 1, 2013

We know that books printed digitally have tended to be, like the old stitch about newspapers, black and white and read all over. For most of digital printing's existence, producing professional four-color books just wasn't possible; you had to use offset. But the times they are a-changing, and technological advances are making the production of full-color books in longer short runs more feasible and economical than ever before. The advent of sheetfed digital printing brought us the ability to print full-color books in very short runs—it was responsible for opening up the high-growth photo book market. Now "4-up" and roll-fed "printer/presses" are further changing the full-color publishing paradigm.

Before we go further, let's define some terms, as printers are, in essence, quite different from presses. Printers regenerate the impression for each copy from a digital file, which allows them to use electronic collation and print the pages of a book block in order. Presses, on the other hand, use a physical image carrier (a plate) to reproduce large printed sheets which are folded into signatures, gathered and bound. But printers become, in essence, presses when either the sheet size or output speed starts to approach the specs of an analog reproduction device (aka a press). A "printer/press" is my term for printers that have many characteristics of a press.

Edwards Brothers Malloy Now Offering 4-Color Offset Book Printing, Increased 4-Color Digital Capacity
November 30, 2012

[Press Release] Ann Arbor, MI (November 29, 2012)—For over a century, Edwards Brothers Malloy has been a leader in 1- and 2-color book manufacturing.  With the purchase of a 40” Heidelberg Speedmaster offset sheetfed press dedicated to 4-color text work, Edwards Brothers Malloy can now offer 4-color book and journal printing in runs from one to 3,000 copies.  The Heidelberg offset press will be fully operational in the company’s State Street plant in Ann Arbor by the middle of January 2013.

Paper is Part of the Process
November 1, 2012

If you've been following the printing world—and if you're reading this column we've got a hunch that you have—you know that advances in digital printing have transformed the technology from the world of the small-run to a viable print-on-demand option for publishers of all sizes and stripes. But don't be fooled: Digital and offset lithography remain quite different beasts.